​Thanks to the awesome success of our Valentines Hunt we are currently looking for participants for our next Hunt. The Easter Hunt will be held in late March 2016. Participants need to join before March 7th to have the Hunt go as smoothly as ever. We had twenty-five participants in our Winter Hunt and fifty in our Valentines Hunt; over one hundred visitors attended each location. The GCG Hunt is the most successful grid event since the 2015 Christmas Spectacular. Don't miss out! Notecard Cayia Keegan inworld or visit their Information office in Manitou.

Here are the winners of the Visit Manitou Market Contest. There were 104 qualifying names and Manitou Tourism bumped the contest up to ten winners from the original five. Each randomly selected name will receive MC$ 100 from Manitou Tourism's CEO Winter Silversmith. Congrats winners!

In January Manitou Tourism announced that they were holding a contest for their merchants in the Manitou Market Mall (Meaford region). A recent update by Mayor Silversmith bumped the prizes up in value to First Place MC$1,000; Second Place MC$750; and, Third Place MC$500 (total value $11.65 Cdn). Only one winner could be chosen per prize and tie votes were not permitted.

One of the winners has been in the mall for quite a while now while the other two are fairly new to the region. Their efforts show the dedication by long term renters and new renters toward the region and keeping customers interested in the mall.

​Mayor Silversmith went around to all of the shops and used a fair method of judging the efforts of the merchants. Winners were chosen on a number of factors including their store facade, themed products and interior decor and finally by the votes they had received - points were awarded for each factor. No one factor alone determined the winners.

The contest closed tonight, February 15th.

​And, the winners are...

FIRST PLACEMC$1,000

ZunZun Art Cubaowner: zun zun

SECOND PLACE​MC$ 750

Homes By Jayde​owner: Jayde Tremor

THIRD PLACEMC$ 500

​Fantasy China​owner: alial allen

Winners will receive their prizes shortly. Congratulations to all of the winners and a special thank you to everyone who participated. To all of our readers, don't forget to visit the Meaford region (Manitou Market) before February 20th to be entered in their special contest. Five visitors will be randomly selected to receive MC$100 each. No purchase necessary.

a) FOUR or more attached individual regions OR TWO or more attached VARs (one or multiple owners)b) have a COLLECTIVE name (examples below)c) a centralized Landing Point (does not have to be forced but there should be a central information parcel on your continent)

UPDATE d)* continents must be surrounded by GCG ocean and "free-standing" from other continents.

Reasoning for (d) If a continent is connected to others it will be considered to be like Europe, which is, on many maps, a part of Asia (or Eurasia) and not a "continent" by the conditions of "surrounded by ocean".

For example: All regions connected to Bridgemere are a part of the Bridgemere collective, like independent countries are part of Asia.

Please send the name of your continent (for example Bridgemere, Manitou) INWORLD to Winter Silversmith, on a NOTECARD ONLY, complete with ONE landmark to your central information point. Thank you :)

I am pleased to tell that the Valentines hunt was another great success. We doubled amount of the participants (55) and there were lots of visitors (average 80 visitors per location). Everything went smoother than the last time and I will make sure next time will be even more so. We got a lot of thanks and very nice comments.

I want to thank all our great creators, builders, shops and our sponsor Manitou Tourism for their hard teamwork and cooperation and look forward to seeing them participate in the next coming hunt!

The Corran Journal recently obtained a notecard issued from the office of Mayor Winter Silversmith of the Continent of Manitou. Here's an excerpt "You may have noticed by now that one of the stores has been removed. This store was vacant. A recent meeting between Manitou Tourism staff has decided that if a store should become vacant it will not be re-rented. We are in the process of transitioning the Meaford region to "include" residential housing.

Now, let me say that you are not being evicted. You are not being asked to pay rent. You are not being asked to move. This process will take several months. The Covenant will not change to reach this objective faster. As stores close they will be removed. For every 2 stores that close a house "may" go up somewhere on the region. This is also dependent on our demand for available housing at the time.

The ending objective will be to have about ten to fifteen dedicated stores that participate in events and update their merchandise regularly, and, residential housing."

We spoke to Mayor Silversmith and he reassured us that the Manitou Market itself is not closing. They have decided to add a more diverse blend of commercial and residential on the region. This is mainly because all of the stores on the region can be found in many others and the Mall has lost it's uniqueness. Since it can not compete with mega malls it has decided on a different route.

The next GCG Hunt will be the "Easter Egg Hunt" coming up in late March. Cayia Keegan is now taking names of those merchants who want to participate. All participants must be registered no later than March 7th. The more the merrier, get your friends involved to make this the best GCG Hunt ever!

Multiple witnesses and the Manitou ATC report that a "unidentified aircraft projecting a bright white glow and hovering approximately 30 metres above ground" appeared over the summer pastureland in south-west Massey at 5:31pm GCGST on Wednesday evening. The craft was tracked into the region from the western sea and stopped above the field. Manitou ATC has provided the satellite imaging obtained of the event and they are still investigating the incident. The craft remained above the field for approximately four minutes projecting a bright white light onto the ground. "The craft vanished out of sight without so much as a vapour trail" said Illa Bewalken who was walking through the region at the time.Emergency Services sent a helicopter over to the location after the craft vanished but reported no activity at the site except the scorched grasses. It is unknown if this craft, or another one like it, could have been some how related to the crash of Mayor Silversmith's personal helicopter into the Muskoka River a couple days ago. The investigation into the crash remains ongoing.

Mayor Silversmith escaped serious injury after the helicopter he was piloting crashed in the Muskoka River this morning. "It was a scary few seconds" said Winter Silversmith "I had just taken off from the pad when something struck the craft disabling the rear propeller. I tried to return to the pad but the engine failed and I went down hard." Manitou Emergency Services was on the scene in minutes and were able to put out the fire and contain the fuel spill before it spread down river. "He was lucky" Fire Chief Red E'lite said "he managed to slow the craft down before hitting the riverbed, it probably saved his life." The crash site will be cleaned up by tomorrow.

Air Traffic Control for Manitou detected another unidentified aircraft near the helicopter at the time of the alleged collision. Mayor Silversmith was lucid following the crash and investigators state that alcohol and narcotics were not a factor in the incident. Manitou ATC reports that that the skies remain open at this time and the crash is currently under investigation.

​Winter Silversmith (RL Kevin M. Klerks), CEO of Silversmith Estates, has opened his first photography studio in the region of Massey. The gallery features his works over the past few years in places including Vancouver, Edmonton, and across Ontario and Alberta. Known for his creative commons features on Flickr he first began sharing his photography in the early twenty first century. The Gallery is located on the left side of the path just north of the border between Meaford and Massey. The photography is framed and available for MC$100, proceeds from the sale of photos support the town of Manitou regions.